The blog of the Instagram of a healthy work-in-progress.

Tag: motivation

*Running can suck—a universal fact for runners of all abilities. If you’re taking on your first block or your 100th marathon, we can all agree that our sport doesn’t always love us back. The thing is, hard runs are some of the most beneficial.

When the going gets tough, every step can dredge up the things you push down, thoughts you might not have if your mind is chock-full of every day life. Sometimes, lacing up and heading out carries the runner closer to a bigger truth about themselves.

It’s dramatic to say, but sometimes… running feels a little bit like destiny. I can feel the changes this half marathon training is raising in me. I’m finding facets of myself I’ve never seen before—grit, drive, a sense of my place. When I move forward with purpose, sometimes it feels like the steps themselves are my purpose.

Most of us won’t break records or claim gold on the world’s stage for our hobbies, but running gives—and we take—our victories. We unearth these deeper, buried parts of ourselves, every time we do something we once believed soul-deep impossible. We hold up these truths and the accomplishments that come with them as our gold and silver and bronze.

So, reminder: your willpower is precious and your work has value. You are more than your surface. Digging down isn’t easy, but every step you surge forward, and every run you leave behind doesn’t make you stronger—it just shows you a strength you had buried all along.

August 2015, I tore a half marathon training plan from the monthly issue of Runner’s World and stuck it on my bulletin board—just in case. I didn’t see the training plan every single day, but on the ones I noticed it pinned there, another mental note would be scrawled and added to the pile with the others.

At some point, those ‘notes to self’ became IOU’s—which I’m now cashing in. I started training for that half marathon goal last week, using that very same plan. This is the embodiment of my 2017 resolution to take my dreams seriously, and an ambition I’ve held for a few years… But at the moment, I don’t feel energized or excited to be on this road.

Blame it on the hot, humid weather, or food, or sleep, but after some reflection this week, I broke it down to a simple truth: making your dreams come true doesn’t always feel like the dream. When picturing the race in October, I think about finally crossing that finish line—not the hours of running that will come before it, or the weeks of training I’m about to put into finally getting there.

And while many of us embrace that the journey is just as important (if not more so) than the destination, because it’s where the bulk of the transformation and learning happens, there’s an idea that every step towards our lofty ambitions will be made with skipping feet and a singing heart. Maybe there’s even a fear that waning enthusiasm means we aren’t on the right road, or chasing the right dream. This probably (definitely) isn’t true. Working towards your dreams is still work—even if it’s doing something you love. There are going to be days when your feet drag, and your song is silence. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with not being 100% enthused 100% of the time.

The trick is to recognize that you owe it to yourself to push through to the joy of it all again. You need to understand that this flattened feeling is only a temporary state, and to not take your attention and your intention off of the end goal—the dream. It’s that, or getting ready to write yourself a lot more IOUs…

Thoughts on how to reinvent the road:• Connect with other people who have the same ambitions
• Give yourself rest days (dreaming downtime)
• Explore detours—find different routes, or other options to the destination (the goal)! There’s more than one way to make it happen.